Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

honoring your husband ❤

just like wives need love, husbands need respect.  God created men with a need to have respect from their mate. husbands desire respect while women desire love.  men need to know that they are adequate, that they are enough and that they are worthy of our respect.  how often do we truly show our husbands the respect they desire?
God’s design for marriage is laid out in Ephesians 5.  i recently read it explained this way… God’s highest purpose in marriage is to showcase the intimate relationship between Christ and His people. we are acting out a living parable where husbands represent Christ and wives represent the church to bring glory to God and to help our children and others around us grasp what God is like in a more concrete way.  does that change the way you look at marriage?  it sure did with me.  God intended marriage to mirror His relationship with the church so that we could basically be a testimony to others and SHOW them what God is like.  
Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. 
Ephesians 5:33

i’ve read this verse over and over again. it doesn’t say respect your husband only when you feel he deserves it, it doesn’t say he has to GIVE respect to GET respect and it’s certainly not up to us to deem when he is worthy of it. God was pretty clear with this verse, the wife MUST respect her husband.

so, i know this girl who has a hot, quick temper and a big, fat mouth and she can cut to the bone with words. and i’m she is pretty good at pointing out her husbands faults and failures. and can pick up on disrespect lickity-split when it’s coming from someone else but can’t see when she is being totally disrespectful to her husband.  if it takes you a while to catch on like me her, sometimes it makes it a little easier when you can read a list.  so i’ve composed a little list of things men see as disrespectful.

  • nagging
  • not spending time with him
  • speaking badly about him infront of others and belittling him
  • yelling at him 
  • undermining his authority
  • withholding sex and using it to manipulate a situation
  • cutting him off mid-sentence
  • shifting blame to him
  • body language – sighing, frowning while you talk and eye rolling
  • criticizing him
  • not giving him the attention he craves
  • putting yourself first rather than him and your family
  • not having confidence in his decision making
every man has his own definition of disrespect and what actions show him that.  there are some things that basically every man would find disrespectful and some things that are just specific to your husband.  what matters the absolute most is what your husband finds disrespectful.  ask your husband what actions these are and make a mental note of them, or write them down in your journal.  ask him what actions really speak respect to him also.  you’ll know which actions to phase out and which ones to increase.  pay attention to all his answers.  
as wives, we have so much power to destroy our husbands or to build them up.  we need to learn to be respectful wives who value our husbands’ leadership.  we need to honor Christ with every word and action!  i would bet if we showed them more respect they would show us more love. when a wife respects her husband it deepens her love for him. so really, it’s a win win situation for everyone 🙂 lots of respect and lots of love, sounds pretty amazing to me.  our men need our encouragement, respect and love. 
out for now
~kisses

EASTER {FINALLY}

i know, i’ve totally slacked at getting these easter pics on here…
this year young mister wore his suit and sure looked sharp and oh so handsome.  i’m fairly sure the girls at church appreciated it as well.
and miss jade in her easter dress, she looked beautiful. super love the pop of color and the headband. she was so excited to wear her new dress easter morning, she was ready before all of us.

joey’s annual easter jig, always a big hit…

awwww, nanny…the kids love going to nannys easter morning for pics with her. and this year nanny went to church with us!

out for now
~kisses

no small change {book review}

No Small Change
by Charles E. Johns
when i read the book description, i was super excited to receive this book and start reading it.  
the description on the back of the book reads:

we often act as if God hides so well that signs of the divine presence are reserved for Hallelujah moments: burning bushes, transcendent music, sunsets, benign test results or rescue of one kind or another. this book contains tales of people, places and things that can either pass unnoticed or can become elemental moments to change the way we experience God. each of the stories illustrates a way in which the ordinary can open the door to an engagement with the divine. No Small Change is an invitation to pay attention to the grace that envelops us, God’s persistent presence which longs to be embraced.

when i read the first story, i was absolutely confused.  as i read through the whole book, i was equally disappointed in the content.  i thought the book was going to be a collection of stories involving other people and their encouraging experiences.  but this book was a collection of hard-to-read short stories of only the authors experiences.  it seemed like a collection of his stories, thoughts and life.  i was expecting a book full of inspiration and encouragement.  what i got instead was a book that couldn’t hold my attention for more than a few minutes.  
while i do think there are some amazing points made in this positive book, they didn’t really stick with me.  if you want to read a book about a Methodist Preacher and his experiences, this book is recommended.  but if you are looking for a book giving you encouraging experiences of different people about God (as i thought it was), this is not the book to read.  
i received this book free from the publisher through the BookCrash.com book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive, review.  the opinions i have expressed are my own.

out for now
~kisses